Two Good Long Runs (and Then a Test...)

Nearly 2 weeks ago, it was still a bit cold and slick outside, so I had a treadmill long run. Two years ago, I'd start some "pace" miles in the middle at 8.9 mph and work up to 10.0 mph for the middle 6 miles of the run. On this run, I started at 9.2 mph and kept upping the pace through 6.5 miles ending with a full half mile at 10.4 mph (with even a bit at 10.5 mph). So my half-mile splits for the 6.5 harder miles looked like this:

6.5 mile at pace:

3:15, 3:13, 3:11, 3:09, 3:07, 3:05, 3:03, 3:01, 2:59, 2:57, 2:56, 2:54, 2:52

= 39:49 (6:07.54/mile)

My Garmin has a hard time with my pace on the treadmill (I take my own splits "manually" after the treadmill tells me I've gone a half mile), but the heart rate tells the story:

That was a total of 11.60 miles in 1:17:10 (6:39 pace overall).

Then this past week, I was outside. It was a pretty nice day for a long run: 36 degrees with a slight breeze on clear trails. I did my normal route with my normal 6 harder "pace" miles, but they were going so well that I didn't "skip" the hill near the end - a lot of times when I'm heading north to the Franklin Ave Bridge on the west side of the river, I don't go DOWN then back UP to the bridge, but instead stay on a sidestreet at the bridge's level for the 3 blocks leading up to it. But I DID take the hill this time, and then ran just a bit over 6 miles just so I wouldn't have to run up that hill and ease up right away. My pace miles here looked like this in my training log:

6.12 miles at pace (ran hard up the hill to the bridge, then kept it up to cross the bridge):

3:11, 3:07, 3:05, 3:07, 3:02, 3:02, 2:59, 2:57, 3:02, 3:03, 3:00, 2:55, 0:39

= 37:13 (6:04.87/mile)

18:35 first 3, 17:59 last 3

That run was 11.32 miles in 1:16:09 (6:44 pace overall).

An out-and-back route - faster miles west of the river,
then crossing over the bridge before easing up.

I figured it was time to put these good long runs (and lots of decent speed work lately) to the test! I found a last minute 5 mile race this weekend. Back with a race report on Monday!!